


a ghost of time

by depthsofgreen



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Breathplay, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Choking, Hallucinations, M/M, Torture, hallucination oswald
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 20:55:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9921794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/depthsofgreen/pseuds/depthsofgreen
Summary: The Riddler wins and wins by day, but loss haunts him at night. Post-3x14 fic in which Edward Nygma grapples with grief, terror, and the ghost of his dead best friend who refuses to obey the physical laws of his usual hallucinations.





	

_one_.

Ed smooths his covers down over his chest, restless. It’s been approximately fourteen hours since he murdered Oswald Cobblepot ( _in cold blood_ , a hissing voice inside his head he doesn’t recognize reminds him). In a few hours, the sun will rise over a Gotham missing its mayor. Missing its underworld kingpin. Missing, of course, only in the literal sense, because who left in this city could _miss_ Oswald Cobblepot?

 _You_ , comes the hiss again.

“Shut up,” Ed breathes aloud, eyes squeezing shut.

The swirling well of confused grief in his chest will pass, he knows. It passed for Kristen, who’d deserved what Ed did to her far less. It’s even passed, at last, for Isabella, now that Ed did what needed to be done to ensure that very passing.

Ironic, maybe, that he’d stilled one howling void only to rip another into being.

It will pass, he reminds himself. Everything does.

“You did what needed to be done,” he speaks into the empty room.

He’s met with no internal reply this time. Ed only wishes he could find that comforting.

Ed is finally drifting off into sleep, interior stream-of-consciousness growing increasingly fuzzy, saturated with half-formed dream images, when he feels a clammy chill crawl up his neck.

He pulls the covers up under his chin, shivering slightly. The discomfort subsides. Its met, however, with a sudden shift in the sound waves of the air, a lull in the electronic thrum of the room like a reverse-pop of silence.

His eyes flutter open.

At his doorway, a silhouette - moonlight framing shadow.

Blood running cold, Ed jolts upright and flips the switch on his lamp. It doesn’t turn on.

Ed’s eyeline flies back to the doorway, limbs static-y and numb.

 _Nothing_. There’s nothing there.

Ed exhales, relief flooding over him, heart still pounding in his throat.

A mild bout of sleep paralysis, perhaps. Or a simple trick of the light.

 _Or_ , the hiss intrudes again, gleeful, _You’re losing it_.

“Shut _up_ , I said,” Ed bites back, louder than strictly necessary given the illusory intended audience.

Ed lies back down, on his side this time, back turned toward the door, and pulls the covers up over his head.

He doesn’t dream at all.

 _two_.

Ed’s back is stiff, hunched as he is over his desk, scrawling equations into a notebook in green ink.

He had woken up this morning to a world without Oswald, and he is determined to _make_ something of that world. Kristen gone, Isabella gone, Oswald gone - this ugly city had nothing left to offer him. Nothing left to take away.

Ed decided the only course of action was to take something from _it_.

Ed is _brilliant_ , he knows - extraordinarily so. Kristen, Isabella, Oswald, they’d all known, too, had seen that in him. Had loved him for it.

It isn’t love Ed wants anymore.

Walking through piss-stinking streets this morning, the heavy-eyed people of Gotham rushing past him, not a one looking up, or smiling, or paying any mind to the newspaper carts announcing ‘MAYOR COBBLEPOT DECLARED MISSING’ in aggressive bold black. They moved right past, too _stupid_ to realize the man they’d voted into office, the one they’d cheered for and adored once, was dead. Too idiotic to draw the obvious conclusion, and too cold and wrapped up in their own insipid corruption to care.

No, it’s not their love Ed wants.

 _I want your awe_ , he thinks, wrist cramping as he scribbles and plots, hand struggling to keep up with the breakneck zap of his brain. _I want your fear_.

He’s going to start with the GCPD, he decides, with Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock, who have not, as far as Ed can tell, done a single damn thing to initiate serious investigation into Oswald’s disappearance. He’s dead, had already been missing for _days_ before that, and still. Nothing.

Utterly useless.

Ed could always tell by the way Oswald’s eyes lit up when he mentioned him that he had longed for Jim Gordon’s love once. Whether he’d wanted it in the same way he’d wanted Ed’s is unclear (for reasons he doesn’t fully understand, he hopes not), but either way, Oswald had wanted something from Jim Gordon, and Jimbo had disappointed him, just as he’d disappointed Ed, and just as he was disappointing him _again_ in death. Oswald never got so much as Jim Gordon’s _fear_.

Ed would take it for him.

 _Is that your way of apologizing for murdering him?,_ comes that awful hiss. _How sweet_.

“It’s nothing so simple as an _apology_ ,” Ed spits aloud. “It’s a tribute.”

“That still sounds rather sweet to me,” a reply from behind him echoes, and _that_ voice? _That_ voice Ed recognizes.

Ed flies up from his chair so quickly he upends it as he spins around, stomach dropping at the sight before him.

Oswald. Gaunt and green-skinned and soaked to the bone, the clothes he’d died in clinging tight around him, stained inky red. His eyes look abyssal-black in the shadow he stands in. His mouth is thin and smeared with blood.

“My my,” Oswald huffs. “Don’t _you_ spook easy.”

“What do you want?” Ed demands, left hand worrying at the collar of his shirt.

“What do I _want_ ,” Oswald considers aloud. “Hmm. What was it you told me when I asked the same question of _you_ once?”

It pains Ed to fail to answer a question put before him, but terror has wrapped icy tendrils around his brain stem.

Oswald laughs, cold and mocking.

“What I _want_ ,” Oswald says, slow, as if giving Ed time to follow, “The poor have, the rich need, and if you eat it -”

“You die,” Ed finishes. “Nothing.”

“That’s another thing about the dead,” Oswald grins, blood-mingled water dripping unnaturally down his chin, “We don’t want anything anymore.”

Ed’s still formulating a reply when Oswald vanishes, leaving nothing but a heightened chill in the air behind him.

Ed stumbles over to his bed, sinking down with a wavering gasp.

“You’ve dealt with hallucinations before,” he reminds himself, gripping the edge of his mattress. “They pass. They always pass.”

Hands shaking, Ed climbs beneath his covers, still fully clothed down to his shoes.

He doesn’t sleep a wink all night.

 _three_.

Ed is exhausted.

Lack of sleep had made him slow, so he’d had to defer his plans for the good men of the Gotham police department.

He is determined to get sleep tonight. Oswald - or, Ed corrects himself, the hallucinatory formation of him - had given up the game too quick, he’d realized. A few more nights of quiet, blink-and-you-miss-it haunting and Ed would still be lying in wait, anticipating violent reveal.

And Oswald had gone and given it up on night two, without even the violence. So he can _talk_ at him, so what? He’d already confessed to wanting nothing.

Feeling, truthfully, quite smug, Ed retires to bed early. Sleep-deprived and feeling newly confident, he’s out in seconds, dreams mostly pleasant and filtered green.

He’s awoken suddenly by a clatter. Startled, he shoots up, and finds Oswald sitting on his nightstand, lamp in shattered pieces at his feet.

“Oops,” Oswald smiles, “Did I wake you?”

Ed has never had a hallucinatory episode he was _conscious_ of end with any real-world items affected, and his lamp most _definitely_ looks well and truly destroyed, but it’s fine. He hasn’t had _that_ many hallucinatory experiences to compare it to. This is, no doubt, normal.

“Don’t even worry about it,” Ed smiles back at him, acidic.

He turns his back to Oswald and pulls his covers up over his head. He refuses to give this ridiculous scenario any more of his attention.

This refusal is going pretty well until he feels a sudden shift at his shoulder, then weight. He twitches, confused, and then he feels it: the unmistakable grip of fingers through the cloth of his blanket.

Ed throws the covers down to his feet with a panicked gasp.

Sure enough, Oswald is facing him on his side of the bed, hand outstretched, looking menacingly pleased with himself.

“Impossible,” Ed stutters. He had certainly never _felt the physical touch_ of one of his projections before.

“Hey Ed,” Oswald says, laughter thick in his voice, “Remember when I reached for you on the dock? And you smacked my hands away?”

Ed is shaking his head, _no no no no no_ , feeling utterly out of control, and if there’s one thing he _hates_ …

“What are you going to do about it now?” Oswald grins, and brings his hand to Ed’s face, cold and damp and smelling of saltwater and death.

Ed wills his legs to move, Oswald’s clammy touch stroking, a mock-loving touch, but he’s frozen in place, just like all those nightmares he’d have as a kid where the need to run was _urgent_ but his body would betray him, stuck in place.

Ed screams, and screams, and screams, eyes screwed shut. His throat is hoarse by the time he opens them again, trembling with relief to find Oswald gone.

He reaches up to feel his cheek where Oswald’s touch had fallen.

It’s wet.

Something in him snaps, and he cries until he can’t distinguish the residual dampness of Oswald’s hand from that of his tears.

_four._

The situation is getting dire. Ed is so tired he spends the day in a zombified fugue state, plans to terrorize delayed _again_ , the GCPD happily chugging along mindless as ever. Still no update on Oswald’s underwater whereabouts.

It’s when he catches himself seriously weighing the cons of confessing to Oswald’s murder and turning himself in that he realizes he needs to _fix this_ , and fast.

He decides checking into a motel is as good a place as any to start. His past hallucinations haven’t been tethered to any one location, but they hadn’t been able to touch him, either, and Oswald surely must have _some_ limits to his power.

Ed immediately sinks into the bed upon entering, so exhausted he feels as though he’s being physically pulled down toward the earth’s _core_ , too grateful that he’s lying down to care about the scratchiness of the motel blanket or the thin stiffness of the mattress.

Sleep comes instantly like a blank void, and then, of course, _of course_ , there’s heavy pressure at his lower hips and fingers on his chest, clammy cold trickling through his top.

“Oswald, _please_ ,” Ed begs, eyes stinging where he’s keeping them screwed tightly shut. He’s too weary for pride or even to open his eyes, he just wants this to _stop_.

“Look at me,” Oswald says, fingers creeping up his neck.

“Will you go away if I do?”

“Maybe,” Oswald says, water-trail of his hands at Ed’s ears now.

Ed opens his eyes, blinking blurrily a few times until Oswald is in focus, lit by the moonlight streaming in through the thin curtains at the window.

Oswald is straddled over his upper thighs, wet and shiny and, _good god_ , completely nude, a slimy trail of thick seaweed wrapped loosely around his neck like a chain.

Ed looks, and looks, and _looks_ , at the blood-smear of his mouth, the tiny water droplets on his lashes, the narrow stretch of his shoulders, his hardened nipples, pale thighs and rounded hips. The wound at his middle oozing blood down to his shadowy crotch.

Oswald wriggles closer to Ed, bringing his face mere centimeters from his. Ed stares back, suddenly strangely calm. He can feel the soft swell of Oswald’s ass as he grinds down.

“Tell you what, Ed,” Oswald whispers, the whistling sound of it tingling up Ed’s neck. “I’ll go away if you fuck me.”

Ed flushes at that, gaping up at Oswald in disbelief.

Oswald laughs.

“What happened to all that talk about ghosts not _wanting_ anything?”

“Hmm,” Oswald hums. “Maybe this is about what _you_ want. I mean, a motel, Ed, really? No one checks into this place to _sleep_.”

Oswald reaches beneath the cover, ghosts a finger over Ed’s crotch. They’re both surprised to find him hard.

“Look at _that_ ,” Oswald smiles, cruelly delighted. “Maybe I should have tried this while I was alive.”

“Oswald -” Ed only realizes he has nothing to say after he’s started. He feels suddenly _dizzy_ with arousal.

“Okay, tell you what,” Oswald says, lifting his ass off Ed’s upper thighs, relieving Ed’s dizziness somewhat. “I’ll go away for the night whether you fuck me or not. After all, this is about _you_. But here’s the kicker: you have to answer my next questions truthfully. If you lie, I’ll know.”

“Okay,” Ed agrees.

“Did you ever think about fucking me while I was alive?”

Oswald watches him intently. Ed is breathing hard.

“Yes,” he admits, small, embarrassed.

A smile.

“Before or after you found out what I did to Not-Kringle?”

“After,” Ed resists the urge to say her name. It doesn’t matter now.

“Ohh,” Oswald laughs. “So it wasn’t a terribly _tender_ lovemaking session you imagined, was it?”

Ed shakes his head, the simultaneous thrill and shame of confession warming him even under Oswald’s chilly weight.

Oswald leans in. Their noses are touching.

“Do you want to do to me now what you fantasized about doing to me then?”

Ed considers that. His cock is aching, the muscles at his stomach tight.

“No,” Ed decides. “I purged myself of the impulse to hurt you with that gunshot.”

Oswald stares, unblinking but silent. Ed feels for the first time like he has the upper hand.

Blood rushing in his ears, he grabs Oswald at the waist and flips him onto his back, hooking his knees behind his elbows.

He doesn’t know if it’s the bone-weary delirium, the way Oswald has gone quiet and breathless, or the simple fact that he’s _heatedly_ curious about what sex with one of his own projections will feel like, but Ed decides: he’s taking this specter of his once best friend up on his offer.

“I do want to fuck you, though,” Ed growls, plans confirmed aloud, grinning when Oswald blinks up at him with bright, surprised eyes.

Ed pulls his bottoms and briefs off with a hand and lines his cock up between Oswald’s ass cheeks, feeling for the wrinkly hole.

He hesitates, just for a moment, given the lack of lubrication on hand and Oswald’s likely virginity, then laughs, remembering: _he’s dead, you killed him, he’s sea-slimy all over and none of this is actually happening anyway_.

Ed pushes in all at once.

Oswald cries out, cold-damp hands scrabbling at Ed’s waist.

His skin is chilling Ed everywhere they’re making contact but he’s _fire-hot_ inside, wet and slippery and tight as all hell, muscles breathing around Ed’s cock as Oswald pants, making helpless, broken little sounds.

Oswald feels _amazing_ , different from Kristen-Isabella, far tighter round Ed’s base and looser toward the tip, the spasming sheath around Ed’s cock more _vulnerable_ , somehow.

Ed pulls out and thrusts back in, groaning deep in his throat, getting hotter all over when Oswald wails and throws his head back, long neck exposed, and, _oh_ , Ed realizes, he’s dead already, so what’s the harm in wrapping a hand around it? Then he does, Oswald looking back at him, gasps strained.

Ed squeezes at his neck, releases, then squeezes tighter, clenches of his hand syncopated against the thrusts of his hips. Oswald gets tighter, clenching down around him after every tight grip at his neck, _enjoying it_ , like Isabella had, like Kristen would have, had they gotten there -

He lets go at that, guilt staying his hand even as his need to come grows more forceful, hand moving down to spread Oswald wider. He thrusts, hard and deep and fast, Oswald’s composure unraveling further by the second till he’s howling, mouth and hole stretched wide, and Ed manages to fuck into him one, two, three more times before he’s coming, face buried in Oswald’s neck, voiding into him with wild cries.

Ed collapses down and hits the scratch of the mattress, bewildered for a moment before he realizes Oswald has vanished, just as he promised.

The mattress beneath him is wet with Oswald’s sea-water and Ed wonders vaguely if Oswald got to come before evaporating into the ether, unconsciousness consuming him before he can roll over to the dry side of the bed.

 _five_.

It’s actually a relief when Oswald shows up again on night five, back in Ed’s bedroom.

It’s not that Ed is ashamed of what happened. Surprised, sure, at himself (thinking and doing are radically different things, though he supposes last night was, in a way, just thinking, too, however real the hot squeeze of Oswald may have felt around him).

Not ashamed, though, no. Confused, maybe. Eager to see what could possibly come next.

“Hello, Oswald,” Ed greets him from his bed after Oswald goes several minutes without speaking. “You look different.”

Oswald is dry, seaweed and blood nowhere in sight. He looks the way he’d looked in life: elegantly, if messily, styled. It makes Ed feel a touch nostalgic.

“I hadn’t noticed,” Oswald is looking at him a little strangely. “Do you have anything you want to say?”

“Say - ?”

Oswald sighs, exasperated.

“This is getting exhausting, Ed. Aren’t you exhausted?”

“I managed to get some rest last night after you vanished.”

“How much longer do you realistically believe you’ll be able to sustain a functioning life with my ghost hanging around?”

“You’re not a ghost,” Ed frowns. “You’re just a projection of my guilt.”

“What _else_ do you think ghosts are?”

Ed has no answer for that.

“Well, how do you suggest I be rid of you?” Ed asks, after a beat of quiet. “Got any _unfinished business_ I can take care of for you?”

Ed is smiling. A little mockingly, perhaps, but smiling nonetheless. Oswald is unmoved, face still.

“A misconception about we ghosts, that. That _we’re_ the ones with unfinished business. No, no, no, my old friend - I think you’ll find it’s _you_ , the haunted, feeling...unfinished.”

“Hm,” Ed considers that, confused anew.

“I thought maybe whatever _last night_ was was what you needed to get me out of your system -”

Oswald sounds slightly judgmental.

“ _Last night_ was on you,” Ed defends himself (and, okay, maybe he _is_ feeling a little ashamed).

“I’m _dead_ !” Oswald yells, loud enough that Ed flinches, startled. “Or are you forgetting that _you’re_ the one controlling this? _Projecting_ it, as you so condescendingly put it?”

“Forgive me,” Ed spits, breathing hard through his nose, angry. “I don’t _feel_ very in control.”

Oswald rubs his temples, sighing.

“There must be _something_ , Ed. Something you wanted to say, or do -”

“I’ve already _said_ and _done_ everything I wanted to do to you.”

He only realizes how cruel it sounds once it’s out of his mouth. He isn’t even sure it’s true. He guesses it can’t be, because Oswald is, unfortunately, _right_ \- he wouldn’t be here tormenting Ed if it were.

“Fine,” Oswald says, petulant. “I’ll see you tomorrow then, I guess. I’ll make sure it’s unpleasant.”

“Oswald -” Ed begins, but Oswald is gone before both syllables have fully left his mouth.

_six._

Ed’s bones are heavy with fatigue, but he’s wired awake, buzzing with manic energy and riding the spiky high of the day he’s had. Four explosions. _Sixteen_ casualties. Jim Gordon’s _face_ when he realized who was behind it. When he realized he’d _failed_ Ed’s simple test. All their faces, tear-streaked and etched with dread.

 _Now_ they saw him. _Now_ they looked.

Oswald’s visit last night, his questions - they’d stirred something in Ed. Oswald had vanished and Ed had sat and thought and thought and _thought_ , but ultimately came up empty. He didn’t know what was left so unresolved he’d had to subject himself to this nightly anguish to force himself to face it. He didn’t know how to make Oswald go away.

What’s more, he wasn’t sure he _wanted_ him to go away.

The mingled panic of _not knowing_ and _not liking what he thought he_ did _know_ had kept Ed up, frantic, desperate for non-Oswald-centric distraction to still the screaming whirl in his head and in his chest. And in just a few short hours, he’d done just that: composed an attack plan worthy of Gotham, its horror matching that of this dreadful city’s.

A plan worthy of his new name.

He laughs aloud, maniacal. _Delighted_ , feeling very much like he has found himself. Seen himself reflected in the gaping mouths and horror-struck eyes of every face that’d ever passed him over.

“Someone’s in high spirits.”

And there he is.

“Oswald,” Ed’s laugh settles into a smile as he greets him. “So much for your promised unpleasantness. I actually _appreciated_ your little visits all day.”

“I’m glad,” Oswald says, flatly. “You certainly were busy.”

“Until today, I’ve only ever seen you - hallucination-you - in the midnight hours. Were my shows of brilliance today enticing enough for you to switch your schedule up for?”

Oswald scoffs. Ed deflates slightly.

“If I was there, it’s because you wanted me there. We’ve been over this. _I_ want nothing.”

“You sure seemed like you _wanted_ something yesterday with all that talk of unfinished business and getting me to expel you somehow.”

“Hm,” is all Oswald says.

Ha. Stumped. Ed is having the _greatest_ day.

Oswald stalks over to Ed. He places his hands on either side of his head.

Pain, _excruciating_ , blossoms in his brain, knife-like claws tearing through soft tissue. Ed yells and falls to his knees, doubled over even when Oswald lifts his hands and the pain abates.

“ _What_ was -”

“I warned you I’d be unpleasant,” Oswald sneers.

Oswald joins Ed on the floor, grabbing his head again. Ed recoils, clenching his jaw in wait of the agony to come, but it’s just a touch this time, cold but harmless. Oswald pulls his head up and toward him until their faces are level.

“You’ve been in denial for too long, Ed. You killed me.”

“I _know_ that.”

“No,” Oswald snaps. “You _don’t_. Not really.”

A flare of pain again like white lightning. Ed writhes, gasping. Oswald holds him in place.

It passes, the dread of the inevitable next wave occluding the relief Ed feels. There are tears streaming from his eyes.

“I killed you,” Ed chokes, desperate, anything to get Oswald to _stop_ , “I shot you, and I pushed you, and I let you drown. Oswald, please -”

Pain. Ed is distantly aware he’s screaming, like it’s someone else’s voice he’s hearing.

“You killed me,” Oswald repeats. “You killed _me_.”

“What are you -”

Pain. Ed is flat-out sobbing now.

“ _Think_ , Ed. You killed me. I haunt you. Why?”

“I don’t -”

Oswald sighs.

“I missed you,” Ed blurts, rushed and desperate but _truthful,_ before the hurt comes again. “That first night, after what I’d done, I missed you, so there you came -”

“Halfway there.”

 _Blinding_ pain.

“ _Argh_ \- god! Oswald, I don’t - I don’t -”

He’s hit then, as if across the face, by a memory: raindrops on the lenses of his glasses, a sharp chill in the air, Oswald, in tears, warning Ed of what will become of him. Ed’s reply, blunt and vicious: _I don’t love you_.

 _A lie_ , that old voice hisses in his ear. Maybe it’s been Oswald all along.

Ed’s chest is heaving, muscles gripped with the terror of the next wave of pain.

“You _know_ ,” Oswald says, eyes filling. “You’re there, I can see it.”

Ed takes a deep, shaking breath. Fear of more physical pain is uprooted by fear of having to say what Oswald needs him to say out loud.

“Oswald, please -”

“Ed, just _say it_.”

“I lied,” Ed gasps, feeling flayed naked by the assaulting pain still sending tremors down his spine. “On the dock, I lied. I _do_ love you, and what I did to you _did_ change me. You were right.”

Oswald is smiling, watery. Ed’s chest feels like it’s bursting with emotion he can’t name.

“Oh god,” Ed moans, realization fully dawning. “You were right.”

“I know. I warned you, you _stupid_ man.”

Oswald brings their faces together and kisses him. His lips are warm, and then they’re gone, and so is the rest of him.

Ed falls back onto the hardwood floor and cries until he wears his body down into unconsciousness.

 _Goodbye_ , comes one final hiss in his ear, melancholy this time.

 _seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen_.

Oswald doesn’t come back.

Ed waits up for him, unable to sleep, sometimes even calls out his name, tentative, hopeful.

But he never comes.

Distraction sorely needed once more, Ed resumes terrorizing Gotham. Every now and then, in the heated rush of the moment, the screams of terror his mere appearance can elicit feel _almost_ as satisfying as love - Kristen’s, Isabella’s. Oswald’s. Hollow, but _something_.

The Riddler rises. He comes to new life with every headline, every puzzle, every casualty and grief-stricken scream, throbbing with the thrill of the game and the way he always, always,  _always_ wins.

It can’t ever quite make up, though, for those three essential losses that have shaped him. In his dreams, he at least gets to feel them beneath his hands again - the dip of Kristen’s waist, the silk of Isabella’s hair, the small of Oswald’s back.

He shudders awake each time, reality washing over them and it’s always like losing them all over again, all at once, the guilt a crushing burden.

Those mornings, the promise of an assured win over the city he lost them in is all that gets him out of bed. 

 _fourteen_.

Ed’s scribbling madly at his desk when his phone rings, shrill and loud.

“What is it?” Ed asks bluntly as he picks it up. He hates being interrupted when he’s at work.

“Eddie,” Barbara greets in her ever-mirthful chirp. “I take it you haven’t heard the news?”

“News?”

“You might want to turn your TV on, hon,” Ed can _hear_ the smile on her face.

He hangs up without replying and rushes over to the living room, digging under a dusty couch cushion for the TV remote and pressing the power button.

His blood turns to ice as the initial static gives form to the sharp gloss of the local news station.

“BREAKING NEWS,” the headline and a stern-looking newscaster read, “EX-MAYOR COBBLEPOT BACK FROM THE DEAD?”

Grainy footage of someone looking very much like the man he killed, and loved, and _killed_ fills the screen, limping into the GCPD building.

Ed brings a hand to his mouth, trembling. Oswald, possibly alive...a surge of terror, relief, guilt, ecstasy grips his chest -

“Edward,” interrupts an all-too-familiar voice to his side.

Ed turns, registering the clatter of the fallen remote hitting the floor somewhere in the back of his mind as his heart skips several beats, a silent static scream filling his head.

 _Oswald_. Pale but bright-eyed, standing clear as day in the middle of his living room.

Ed gasps, comically delayed, mind processing.

“Are - are you - the real one?” He asks, stupidly, heart pounding so loudly he can scarcely hear himself.

Oswald steps toward him, a strange green gleam in his eye.

He smiles, wide and sinister.

**Author's Note:**

> Title lifted from a phrase appearing in _Gotham City Sirens_ , Issue #24.


End file.
